Ritchie Blackmore Quotes

Playing guitar is not a beauty contest.

I've never been happy with the quality of my work. I always felt as though my musicianship was lacking and that I should have worked harder at it when I was younger. As I sang and sang, I improved.

If you give me a bass guitar and you ask me to improvise something, or even be with some musicians and follow them, I wouldn't be able to do it. And I want to change that.

I'm a useless guitar-player. When I put myself in a band I immediately became its weakest part. I was like my forehand volley at tennis.

I'll never be the best guitar player.

I can't dance and I can't sing too well.

I like finding stuff that I suck at and trying to get better. So I'm taking classes, getting myself comfortable in an acting scene. You've got to work out those ticks. For instance, standing up used to be really hard for me. I act much better if I'm sitting down.

I can't do all that riddly diddly stuff. I'm not good enough. It's all about not playing.

The fact that I wasn't expected to read music at all and was absorbing everything by ear... it had a huge affect on the kind of musician that I became.

I promise you, if you look at YouTube and see some of my first covers, you will hear that I don't sound good. But I was so obsessed with it and wanted so much to be good at it that I forced myself to figure out what sounds right and what sounds wrong.

I wish I sang better.

Because I trained in theater, I always leave a film shoot feeling like I haven't done anything, like I just sat in front of the camera and whispered, essentially.

I don't think I'm a good-enough songwriter.

And I had not much of a voice. I didn't play that great guitar either.

I've been to acting coaches and everything, but they had to open me up and all that, so now I'm getting better with it.

I was a late bloomer, but I realised that people really liked it when I played blues scales and, with the piano, I had that insatiable need to prove myself.

It takes me some time to get into what I am doing - since I am not a trained actor, I don't have that skill. I have to think of what I am doing and how it comes through.

It keeps my feet on the ground just making sure that I'm always trying to learn something new or trying to be a real guitar player.

I can't play piano well enough without making mistakes.

Jazz scares me. I've witnessed so many incredible singers and jazz musicians. Pop and soul music have always been the things that I felt like I could do.

What I was doing wasn't good enough. It was good enough up until I met someone who was doing it properly - someone who was stronger than me and in better mental and physical condition than I was.

I'm a piano player and singer who can't play piano very well or sing very well. That isn't a recipe for success. I have to get better.

I see someone like John Williams, the classical player, and the amount of discipline and the natural ability that man has is so frightening. That requires so much natural talent. And I think my talent came from just practising, and I feel a bit intimidated when I see players that good.

You can be born into a musical family and have an ear for music but being technically gifted, be it playing an instrument or songwriting, takes years to get good at. So for me, I'm excited to start over, and yeah, I have a few talents I can build off of. But I see this as a long process; it's a marathon.

I'm not a real musician. If you give me a bass guitar and you ask me to improvise something, or even be with some musicians and follow them, I wouldn't be able to do it. And I want to change that. I want to be able to be in a group and take my guitar and play with them, without someone showing me, "Okay, you're going to do this and that," because music has always been a big part of my life.